Poisoned Ground (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

Rachel flung the pen down. It bounced off her desk and hit the floor with a sharp
thwack
.

She couldn’t concentrate. She hated the paperwork associated with owning a small business, and she tended to let it accumulate until she needed a whole day to plow through it. Today had been set aside for the chore, but she couldn’t keep her restless mind on budget figures and supply orders and insurance renewal forms. Despite her best efforts, her attention kept circling back to her conversation with Joanna, to the unwelcome image of Marie Kelly and Jake Hollinger meeting in the woods for a tryst, to the memory of Joanna’s stable ablaze in the night.

She swung her chair around to the window and checked the progress of repairs on the Packard company’s plate glass window across the street. The two workmen had the new glass in place, and Lawrence Archer watched from the sidewalk as they applied putty inside and out.

The phone rang. Rachel swiveled around again and saw it was an outside call transferred from the desk. She reached for the receiver, expecting to hear a distraught owner with a question about a pet that didn’t seem well or had swallowed something potentially harmful. “Hello. This is Dr. Goddard.”

The voice on the other end sounded muffled, as if the caller had covered the telephone with a cloth. “If you don’t change your tune, your animal hospital’s gonna be next.”

A hot flash of anger jolted her. “What kind of coward threatens a woman on the telephone? Afraid to say it to my face? Afraid I might hurt you?”

The man didn’t answer.

Rachel waited.

“Or maybe that little boy’ll be next.”

A gasp escaped her before she could stop it.

“You can’t watch him every minute,” the caller said. Then he hung up.

Paralyzed, Rachel gripped the phone in her trembling hand and listened to the drone of the dial tone and her own rasping breath, in and out, in and out. Simon’s in school, she told herself. He’s safe. For now.

She slammed down the receiver and snatched her address book from the top drawer of her desk. Flipping through it, catching too many pages in her fumbling fingers, backtracking, she found the school’s number.

The woman who answered told her the principal wasn’t in her office, she was elsewhere in the building. “Let me take your number and she’ll call you back.”

“I have to talk to her right now. This is urgent.”

“I can’t leave the desk,” the woman protested. “There’s nobody to—”

“This can’t wait. Find her and bring her to the phone or give me her cell number.”

“I can’t give out her private—”

“Listen to me. Somebody has threatened to hurt Sheriff Bridger’s nephew, Simon. If anything happens to him because you wouldn’t let me talk to the principal—”

“All right, all right. Hold on.”

An interminable time seemed to pass before the principal, a Mrs. Rogers, came on the line. “Dr. Goddard? Maggie said somebody threatened little Simon. My goodness, this is terrible. What can we do to help?”

Thank God, thank God for sensible people.
“Don’t let him leave the school with anybody except me, or my husband’s aunt or uncle, or my husband himself. If you see anybody strange hanging around the school, call the Sheriff’s Department right away.”

“Oh, absolutely. It’s just shameful, the things that have been going on around here lately. You have my word that Simon is safe here with us.”

After hanging up, Rachel sat at her desk, her face buried in her hands, until her heartbeat slowed. “He’s okay,” she whispered. “He’s okay.”

When she thought she could speak calmly, she picked up the receiver again and punched in Tom’s cell number, hoping he was in an area with reception.

He answered quickly. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I got an anonymous call a few minutes ago. A man. He threatened to hurt Simon if I didn’t stop opposing the resort development.”

“Aw, Christ—”

“I called the school and told the principal about it. They’ll make sure he’s safe while he’s there. But I knew you’d want to know.”

“I’m on the road right now. I’ll call Uncle Paul and ask him to go keep an eye on the school until classes are out. I don’t think we ought to pull Simon out of class.”

“No, no, I agree. That would scare him.” Rachel’s pulse was pounding in her temples again, and she pulled in a shuddering breath to calm herself.

“He’ll be all right,” Tom said. “Remember Uncle Paul’s a retired deputy. He knows what he’s doing, and he cares about Simon. We’ll find out where that call came from. Did it come in on your landline or cell?”

“Landline. The office number.”

“You’ve got Caller ID there, don’t you? Check it for me.”

Excited by the hope that it really would turn out to be that easy, Rachel hurried out to the desk. Her spirits plummeted when she looked at the incoming call record and found not a number but the word UNAVAILABLE. She returned to her office to let Tom know.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “I’ll tell Dennis to get a warrant for the records. Don’t worry about Simon, okay?”

“I’ll try not to.”
But if he gets hurt because of me…

She squelched the thought. None of this was her fault. She had to keep telling herself that. Drowning herself in guilt was nothing more than self-indulgence.

After she hung up, she rose and walked out, telling Shannon as she passed the front desk, “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” When she pushed open the front door, the chilly wind whipped her white coat around her body and lifted her hair off her neck. Ignoring the cold, she marched ahead, cutting through the parking lot and crossing the street.

Archer seemed startled when she walked up beside him, but he quickly produced a broad smile. “Dr. Goddard, it’s always a pleasure to see you.”

You smarmy bastard.
“How’s your finger? Any sign of infection?”

Still smiling, he held up the bandaged finger. “I think I’ll survive.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if Mason County will survive.”

Archer’s smile faded a bit but he hung onto it. He didn’t respond to her statement.

“Somebody set Joanna McKendrick’s stable on fire last night,” Rachel added.

“I heard about that.” His smile vanished and he put on an unconvincing expression of concern. “The horses are all okay, aren’t they?”

“It’s pure luck that they survived. I think we’ll see more incidents like that, more damage to property. And attacks on people. Somebody just called me and threatened to hurt my husband’s little nephew.”

Archer frowned, and now his concern appeared genuine. “I’m sorry. That’s despicable.”

The two glaziers, outside and in, had stopped working to listen to their exchange.

“None of this would be happening if it weren’t for you and the company you work for.”

“That’s not fair, Dr. Goddard. We’re here to conduct business—and our business will benefit this community in more ways than you can imagine.”

“Why can’t you take no for an answer? Joanna McKendrick is never going to sell you her land. So stop pushing and look somewhere else.”

“But that property is—”

“As long as you keep telling people that’s the only property you’ll consider, it’s Joanna’s land or nothing, this county is going to be a war zone. But you don’t give a damn, do you? No matter how it turns out, no matter who gets hurt, you’ll just walk away from it and move on to the next place. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

“I have no trouble sleeping.” Archer’s tone was mild, but his eyes had turned cold and hard. “I’m helping to bring jobs to this community. I don’t apologize for that.”

“Oh, that’s right. How silly of me. I was appealing to your conscience, and I forgot that you don’t have one.”

Rachel turned and walked back to the animal hospital, tugging her white coat closed and hunching her shoulders against the wind.

***

Tom paced Jake Hollinger’s driveway, cell phone to his ear. He’d caught Dennis Murray as he was leaving headquarters for the courthouse next door in search of a judge to sign warrants for Joanna’s and the Jones sisters’ phone records.

As Dennis returned to his desk to write up another warrant for the animal hospital’s records, he reeled off a list of complaints called in to the Sheriff’s Department so far that morning. Mailboxes knocked down. Threatening messages painted on houses in the dead of night. Cow dung dumped on front porches. “The targets are all people who oppose the resort development. I’ve sent four guys out to take victim statements and collect any evidence they can find.”

“I guess we ought to feel lucky our firebugs didn’t go on a spree last night.” Ending the call, Tom shook his head and told Brandon what he’d heard. “This is going to be normal until the resort issue’s settled.”

“It probably won’t stop even then,” Brandon said. “The losing side’s not going to give up easily.”

Jake opened his front door and called, “Y’all coming in, or you gonna stand on my driveway all day?”

The house felt stuffy, too warm, and the living room, with its dust-coated tables and unlit lamps, looked as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. Jake led them through it without stopping, then through the small dining room into the kitchen, where the aroma of fresh coffee mingled with the fishy odor of cat food. His shirttail hung out over his khaki pants, he hadn’t shaved yet, and his silver hair looked as if he’d combed it with his fingers. Going downhill fast, Tom thought, without Tavia around.

“Want some coffee?” Jake asked. “I just made it.” When Tom and Brandon both declined, he motioned at the table. “Sit down. I don’t know what you’re here for, though. I don’t have any more letters to give you.”

Brandon took a seat at the table, but Tom stooped next to the cat bed where Tavia’s pet lay curled up. “What’s his name again? Spud?”

“Tater.”

“Hey, Tater.” Tom rubbed his knuckles over the cat’s head. “How’re you doing?”

The cat looked up at him with sad eyes and didn’t lift his head.

“He’s still down in the dumps, but he ate his breakfast this morning.” Jake pulled out a chair and sat across from Brandon, mug in hand. “There’s not much that can come between that cat and his food.”

“Be sure and call Rachel if he doesn’t adjust. She can help.” Tom joined them at the table.

Jake nodded, watching the cat. “They mourn, you know. Animals. They mourn like people do.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jake’s own grief for Tavia had deepened the lines around his eyes and mouth, and for the first time Tom had the conscious thought:
This is an old man.
An old man who would grow older alone, without the woman he’d loved, alienated from his only child. But that wasn’t Tom’s concern today. “Was everything quiet here overnight?”

Jake scrubbed a hand over his chin, and Tom could hear the scrape of stiff gray bristle against his palm. “Quiet as a tomb. I don’t expect it to last, though. Like I said last night, both sides are going to retaliate. One side set Joanna’s stable on fire, so I won’t be surprised if the other side torches my barn. Or my house.”

“You still planning to change your will today?”

“You bet I am. I’ve got an appointment with the lawyer. I need to shave and get out of here soon or I’ll be late.” Jake paused, then added, “My son might not be losing out on a fortune after all. With Tavia gone, I don’t care about the Packard money. I might as well stay put.”

“That’ll make a lot of people mad,” Brandon said.

“I don’t give a shit who gets mad. Tavia’s dead. Nothing else that happens can be any worse than that.”

“That just leaves the Kelly property and the Jones property in doubt,” Tom said. “Ronan’s hot to sell, but it’s hard to tell which way Sheila’s leaning. We just came from the Kelly house, by the way.”

Jake shoved his chair back, scraping the linoleum, and moved to the sink as if he had an urgent task to perform there. But all he did was grip the edge of the counter, his head down. “What did Ronan find that he thought was so important?”

“It was interesting. I don’t know how important it is.” Tom noticed something on the floor then, something caught and dragged by a leg of Jake’s chair. It looked like a knitted scarf. Pink, light and soft.

Jake didn’t speak for a long moment, but when Tom didn’t go on, he blurted, “Something to do with me?”

“What makes you think that?”

Jake pivoted, his face contorted by anger and frustration. “God damn it, will you just come right out and say it? You’re acting like a cop on some damned TV show. What are you here for, if it hasn’t got anything to do with me?”

“Ronan found some pictures with you in them.”

Jake slumped against the counter, shaking his head. “That’s what I figured, from the way he was acting at Joanna’s. Damn. We searched everywhere and we couldn’t find all of them. Where were they? Where did Linc hide them?”

“We?” Brandon said. “Who do you mean?”

“Marie and me. We searched every inch of that house a couple weeks ago, and the wood shed, even the damned chicken house, and they just weren’t there.”

“Did you look inside the ceiling in the basement?” Tom asked.

Jake slapped a palm to his forehead in an almost comical show of self-reproach. “Aw, shit. The one place—”

“Why did Marie want to find the pictures?”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Have you looked at them?”

“Not thoroughly, but we’ve seen them.”

“Then you ought to know why she wanted to find them. She was going to burn them, and the negatives too if she could get her hands on them. She never wanted her kids to see those pictures.”

Brandon shook his head. “Why would the pictures bother Ronan and Sheila? I mean, except for them making their dad seem like a perv.”

Because their mother is in them? Tom wondered. But in his quick glimpses of the photos, he hadn’t seen Marie Kelly. When Sheila objected to Ronan turning them over, her only concern seemed to be the implication that their father was a stalker and a blackmailer. Tom waited to hear what Jake would say.

Obviously puzzled by the question, Jake hesitated, glanced from Brandon to Tom. “I thought…” He shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“You thought what?” Tom rose and faced Jake. “Are there some other pictures we don’t know about?”